Is Sony’s true counter to Gamepass, Live Service games?

[Remember_Spinal]

We know Jim Ryan/Sony has gone on record saying the future isn’t Subscription gaming, it’s live service titles. Its why Sony releases so many multiplayer games on PS Plus. They are trying to collect data and user engagement, stuff like Rocket League, Fall Guys, Meet Your Maker, Arcadegeddon, and tons of other stuff comes out versus more single player stuff. They must know that stuff like Warzone, Genshin, Apex, etc. are generating a shit ton of revenue every year versus what ps plus subs are bringing in.

Sony exec Jim Ryan believes live service games will dominate over subscriptions

Sony exec Jim Ryan believes the future of gaming is in live service games and that subscription services won't reach th…

www.eurogamer.net

I think Sony looks at something like gamepass and laughs. They have twice the amount of paid subscribers at the moment and they probably know it’s not nearly enough to generate real revenue from it. They probably make more off a single 3rd party gaas title than they do ps plus subs. I think ps plus is used to keep people engaged with the platform not to actually make money.

We also know that subscription gaming has been slowing down, it was reported by Mat Piscatella and Phil Spencer himself.

Xbox Game Pass growth is ‘slowing down’ on console, claims Phil Spencer | VGC

Xbox Game Pass growth on console is “slowing down,” according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer.

www.videogameschronicle.com

I think there might have been a boom for subscription gaming when overall time spent gaming was on an overall high during the pandemic but that its cooled off. I think the pandemic inflated a lot of user engagement and now that the smoke is clearing it looks like things are returning back to normal. PS5 and Nintendo are selling like crazy still and premium full priced games are still setting records.

Where I think people thought Gamepass and subscription gaming was going to be a big disruptor toward full game sales I think Live Service/F2P titles will be a huge disruptor towards subscription gaming. I mean, sony is about to unload a dozen or so live service titles onto the ps5, i assume they will probably be bigger budget than the usual fair also.

If sony is really planning on flooding the market with F2P multiplayer i think its going to change the dynamic of the industry greatly in the other direction, i mean, if they end up actually being games on par with sonys single player releases.

I expect stuff like Factions, Helldivers 2, Firewalk game, Bungies two new games to be very big releases in sonys library within the next two years.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Customers still like buying big tentpole releases and going to the cinema. Mat from Circana (lol) said full-price releases are selling good and not slowing down. Why dump them on a subscription service Day 1, at the height of marketing? PS Extra is the way to do it.

Even Live Services are starting to get some fatigue. The last big one was Fortnite? The top 10 are all old like PUBG, Apex, Destiny, Warzone.

Sony might hit the jackpot with Factions but the rest we'll see.

 

[Bryank75]

If they had the chance... buying things like Genshin, FFXIV and others that have massive audiences across platforms would have been the way to go, to achieve that massive inflated MAU, like Microsoft puts out.

Minecraft was a huge get for Microsoft and increases Microsoft MAU's a lot and now with things like Elder Scrolls Online and then if Activision goes through... COD and many others.... they will be putting out MAU numbers like 300-500 million. Anyone that touches their games.

Sony even gave away the chance to buy things like Rocket League and Fallguys and many others....

It's time that they stopped letting these chances fall through their fingers and regret it later.

It's really tricky to get new GAAS games to become a hit....

Anyone know any big GAAS that could possibly be bought?

 

[daniel5043]

If they had the chance... buying things like Genshin, FFXIV and others that have massive audiences across platforms would have been the way to go, to achieve that massive inflated MAU, like Microsoft puts out.

Minecraft was a huge get for Microsoft and increases Microsoft MAU's a lot and now with things like Elder Scrolls Online and then if Activision goes through... COD and many others.... they will be putting out MAU numbers like 300-500 million. Anyone that touches their games.

Sony even gave away the chance to buy things like Rocket League and Fallguys and many others....

It's time that they stopped letting these chances fall through their fingers and regret it later.

It's really tricky to get new GAAS games to become a hit....

Anyone know any big GAAS that could possibly be bought?

Dead by daylight

 

[Bryank75]

Dead by daylight

Behavior Interactive so?

1000+ employees... big studio!

 

[FatKaz]

I know playstation fan don't like it, but sony needs live service games. When you have microsoft and no doubt others in the future buying out publishers and possibly removing big revenue generators, sony need something of their own. It positions them to withstand that type of loss.

 

[daniel5043]

Behavior Interactive so?

1000+ employees... big studio!

A couple of hundred of those are support for other publishers

 

[Bryank75]

A couple of hundred of those are support for other publishers

Interesting.... they seem to have some operation going there!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I think subscription gaming will have a place in the future, but not in catch-all services like Game Pass that want to push Day 1 availability. It just leaves too much money on the table, even for a company that doesn't even need gaming revenue to survive like Microsoft.

What I can see happening to make Day 1 releases more affordable, is just offering up pay installment plans for new full-priced releases. I still think that's what Sony should do; so you can either pay $70 Day 1 for a new AAA release or break that up into say six months of installment payments for $12/mo, or twelve months of payments for $6/mo.

You can pay a bit more each month if you want free DLC or MTX perks access, stuff like that. Maybe the version of the game being purchased in installments would need to be different, it would need to have a way of detecting when the user needs to make a payment and disabling access to the game if they miss a payment and don't make the payment in some period of time. I also think some form of PS Rewards would have to be built into the offer to further incentive a Day 1 pickup paying on installments vs. that person just waiting for a drop in the price to buy the game on a sale.

But I do genuinely believe that model could work, at least for digital sales tied to the storefronts. I think Microsoft should offer something like that as well, but in their case would need to be paired with changes around certain aspects of Game Pass. Besides that, I can see subscriptions working as a mass catalog of a backlog vault of older titles.

 

[Zzero]

So what your saying is Nintendo gamers win again?


Excellennntttt.....

 

[peter42O]

Personally, I believe that it's much easier to make a subscription service a success compared to a live service game simply because outside of EA Play and now Ubisoft+, there's nothing else out there for Sony or Microsoft to compete with where as when it comes to live service games, there's a billion of them and if Sony wants to have a few of them succeed which I do believe that they will have, they need to be free to play. If not, I see them being dead on arrival or close to it because it's a different audience and you're not going to pull away those who play Warzone, Fortnite, Apex Legends and Genshin if you're charging $70 for the game.

I see Sony having two maybe three of their live service games be a success. TLOU Factions, the Horizon multi-player game and a COD type shooter. But only if they're free to play. If not, it's going to be a huge uphill battle for Sony because those who play the free to play live service games and do so on a daily/weekly basis aren't leaving those games just to pay $70 to just see if they can get into it. Luckily, I don't see Sony charging for these games at all. They'll be free to play in my opinion.

 

[Bryank75]

Personally, I believe that it's much easier to make a subscription service a success compared to a live service game simply because outside of EA Play and now Ubisoft+, there's nothing else out there for Sony or Microsoft to compete with where as when it comes to live service games, there's a billion of them and if Sony wants to have a few of them succeed which I do believe that they will have, they need to be free to play. If not, I see them being dead on arrival or close to it because it's a different audience and you're not going to pull away those who play Warzone, Fortnite, Apex Legends and Genshin if you're charging $70 for the game.

I see Sony having two maybe three of their live service games be a success. TLOU Factions, the Horizon multi-player game and a COD type shooter. But only if they're free to play. If not, it's going to be a huge uphill battle for Sony because those who play the free to play live service games and do so on a daily/weekly basis aren't leaving those games just to pay $70 to just see if they can get into it. Luckily, I don't see Sony charging for these games at all. They'll be free to play in my opinion.

I think you're definitely right about making them free to play.... that also means that you don't need PS+ to play them online.

But the monetization needs to be really on point then for them to make anything out of it.

 

[daniel5043]

Not all live service games are shooters guys

 

[Yurinka]

Live services games aren't the future, they are the present: they generate the majority of the gaming revenue and have the majority of the players.

I see Sony having two maybe three of their live service games be a success.

MLB and GT7 already are two successful live service games. And they didn't need to be F2P.

Anyone know any big GAAS that could possibly be bought?

They already bought Destiny and the new IPs being made at Bungie, Firewalk and Haven.

I'd say they couldd buy the new IP being made at Deviation plus MiHoyo: Genshin Impact is huge (PS+PC+mobile) and they have potential to make more big games including a huge anime hack & slash GaaS.

Not sure about the MiHoyo market price, but they make a shit ton of money and have 5000 employees. They probably are too expensive.

 

[peter42O]

I think you're definitely right about making them free to play.... that also means that you don't need PS+ to play them online.

But the monetization needs to be really on point then for them to make anything out of it.

Agree. As long as the micro-transactions are cosmetic only and not overpriced, they'll make a lot of money on it and even more so if they can hit on two or three of them.

 

[peter42O]

MLB and GT7 already are two successful live service games. And they didn't need to be F2P.

I meant the games that are just fully co-op/multi-player with no solo option. MLB and GT 7 can be played solo.

 

[Bryank75]

Live services games aren't the future, they are the present: they generate the majority of the gaming revenue and have the majority of the players.


MLB and GT7 already are two successful live service games. And they didn't need to be F2P.


They already bought Destiny and the new IPs being made at Bungie, Firewalk and Haven.

I'd say they couldd buy the new IP being made at Deviation plus MiHoyo: Genshin Impact is huge (PS+PC+mobile) and they have potential to make more big games including a huge anime hack & slash GaaS.

Not sure about the MiHoyo market price, but they make a shit ton of money and have 5000 employees. They probably are too expensive.

I'm sure they will have a mix of paid and F2P.... and paid along a spectrum from 20 up to 70 dollars entry fee.

 

[ksdixon]

I know Sony music bought netease music a while ago. What are the synergies or politics between their gaming arms working together?

 

[Nhomnhom]

GaaS(mostly F2P) were always the counter to Gamepass. Gamepass type services makes no sense as the main business model for video games. If you play Warzone, Apex Legends, LoL, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Dota, GT7, FFXIV or anything that demands a lot of time paying a subscription to play some random games it the least attractive thing.

Sony also already has PS+ Essentials and PS+ Extra that to most people are better than Gamepass. Sorry to be the one to say it but nobody cares about playing Pentiment, Tunic, Redfall, Flight Simulator, Halo, etc. Xbox is far from having consistent big releases anytime soon, they'll have Starfield then what?
Pay for another 3 years until the next relevant release? 6 years of Gamepass and what do they have to show for it?

PS+ Premium sucks but they'll hopefully improve or just get rid of it at some point.

 

[Zzero]

I know Sony music bought netease music a while ago. What are the synergies or politics between their gaming arms working together?

NetEase is at slightly over half of Sony's valuation (its bigger than Nintendo) but their Chinese mobile-centric portfolio doesn't really do anything for Sony globally. They've recently (past three or so years) started trying to invest into western-style gaming though obviously nothing's come out yet and it all just smells like a backdoor into trying to sell their very abusive style of GaaS to a market that would turn their nose at it otherwise. Given that they want to make money off as big an install base as possible and that they are targetting genres like MOBAs and MMOs I don't think thats a good fit for skipping Xbox or especially PC. Also, they own Quantic Dream and I think Sony is done with that studio.

edit: Oh, they own Grasshopper, the No More Heroes studio, too.